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Friday, February 25, 2011

It has been a long time since I painted a space marine. It’s been a decade since I painted a marine for my Cerulean Templar 40k army.

We had a local contest, where we were given a model to paint and convert, and so I ended up with a mismatched set of bits for a plastic scout sniper. The problem was the torso was for the kneeling shooter and the legs were for the standing scout. So the solution was simple, wip out a quick conversion as I really did not have time to spare with the contest deadline, to cover up the problem. This meant converting a base, urban rubble to match my old army, and piece of GS on the cape.
I decided that I may as well do an urban camo pattern for the cape, since he is a sniper.
I’ve been doing so much Fantasy and Ancients/Historicals lately that it was refreshing to paint a 40k Space Marine. I’ve nearly forgotten how much fun a space marine is to paint.

Been thinking lately about doing another space marine army. I may have to revist the Medieval Space Marine theme or possibly do a Word Bearer army.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Making some progress on my Perry Miniature Norman Knights. Got all of the horses done on the first unit and most of them done on the second unit. I was worried that my sculpting of the sleeve-less surcoats was a little rough, but after the priming and I painted a couple, that worry soon faded. I'm still not as good as the Perry's, but I think my work is holding up.

Different view, you cannot buy them from the Perry Brothers like this.

Below is one of the robed Perry Crusader Knights, that model you can buy from them like that, minus the paint.

And below for comparison, is one of mine with the sleeveless surcoat and horse with a caparison.

Still have a long ways to go, have to do all of the heraldry type stuff. Paint all of the shields, all of the washes to define things. I plan on painting all of that after everything is basically done. Mainly because I'll be using one of my better brushes, a Kolinsky sable, and for consistency. Most of the stuff is just sitting in my head at the moment. Basing will be the last thing to do.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

When I first started this army back a few years ago, I had intended to model and convert everything using GW's entire line of chaos figures. Being the Conan/Frazetta/Death Dealer and general Barbarian fan that I am, the theme was simply barbarians and mutant barbarians, so I could use all the cool beastmen stuff. Very simple, very fitting of Chaos.

As this army has progressed, I had a bunch of old GW metal marauders and beastmen that I had wanted to paint. Then as I added those to the army, a number of other cool miniatures kept coming back to mind from various manufacturers. Many of those miniatures were stuff that I wanted to paint, so why not do that. They fit the army, they're barbarians. So lets add the cool stuff from Red Box Games, Avatars of War, Reaper Miniatures, all of the GW Chaos Character figures that I like, etc.

So continuing that thought I've decided to add the ones pictured below to the army. The figure on the left is Gorak, a Reaper Miniature, and sculpt by Tre Manor. Next is a Reaper barbarian that I had all chopped so I converted it with some GW bits. Next is a really cool miniature The Barbarian King, from Cool Mini Or Not. Lastly a Reaper barbarian converted. All of these will be used in my marauder hordes.

Then there comes the ones below.The figure on the left is a Reaper, like most Reaper stuff, the scales often vary, this does not bother me, Barbarians come in all different sizes. Next is another Reaper Miniature, sculpted by Tre Manor. Then I got a deal on the next two which are Avatars of War minis, I'll probably use them as characters. And I also picked up the Avatars of War Marauder champion.

So will all look good when done, that's a good question. I do know that I will enjoy painting them.

Friday, February 18, 2011

I did a commissioned skaven war litter quite sometime ago and was left with a whole lot of the new GW storm vermin bits, a model I have really come to like. And their halberds are seriously cool looking blades that I have come up with what I think is a rather ingenious use for, that I will be sharing in future posts on my Warriors of Chaos army. So what to do with the left over bits? Make another.

The warlord on the litter is a rather simple conversion, mostly just a weapon conversion. I used some of the cut off halberds for the guys bearing the litter, just to use up the bits. I will probably shorten up the staff/sticks they are holding. The next time I do this, I would like for the handles to be parallel to the litter platform. The real problem with that is that all of this needs to fit on a 40mm square base.This is definitely a concept that I plan to revisit when I get back to my orcs and goblins army modeling. I have always loved Nurgle planaquins and this whole war litter concept is cool. So with a little more work, this will be done.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

My Auxiliary cavalry unit is finished, one of the models in not pictured in this group shot, but they are all done. I think that I have finally figured out how to paint horses and came up with some color schemes that work.I like the Warlord Games’ plastic models, but their metal models have been hit or miss with me. These are all metal. The majority of the model is cast well with not a lot of work to remove the mold lines. That is until you get to the arm holding the shield that is like a large glob of metal. A little carving with a chisel pointed xacto and some filing can fix that. The horses also have the typical flash you see on many metal casting between the legs.At first I thought the horses were odd, as the legs and lower body of the rider are a part of the horse casting (not really friendly to people that like to kit bash and covert things), but after working with the Perry Norman Knights, I actually kind of like this setup. To me it is much easier to join the rider and with it being more of socket type join, it appears to be much stronger.On the shields, I used the Little Big Men transfers.On the transfer sheet instructions they recommend painting the shield white and then apply the translucent transfer.

Well I wanted a mine to look slightly worn and used, so I actually weathered the white under base with some washes, and then applied the transfer. Once again using these transfers nearly brings tear to your eyes as they are so good, so detailed, so well thought out, and so user friendly. They were actually center hole-punched where the shield boss is located, absolutely awesome.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Making some progress on getting some torsos for the new chaos knight horses. I have three of these done and then started working on this one.I'm purposely keeping the detail down on these as I want a bunch of blanks that I can cast then further detail. The saddle areas will get added armor plates. The design of the torso similar to the space marines.

I will be able to fit the normal chaos knight heads in a socket and then pin the arms, add the shoulder pads and some other details.

The molds will be one piece castings, they'll insert into the horse body. Already test the mold and casting process using Smooth-On products, more on that later as I'm preparing my orc army for the coming war against humanity...And it will be glorious....

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The Vampire Count bashing goblin riders are here. I was asked to continue the commissioned theme into the Wolf Riders. These are some of the oldest of the models that are part of this army and are in need of a little updating.To continue the theme, I decided to go back to the skeleton/tombstone idea once again. The commissioner will take care of most the basing, but I wanted to have plenty of eye candy to tie these in.

The goal was also to make each model an individual, just like the boys were.

The bowman are bit more static, and the spears got the dynamic look.

Speaking of the spears, that weapon is in serious need of updating. I decided to use the skaven blades, to give them a more mean look.

I changed a few of the wolves around also. Got the one jumping the tombstone. Covered up the joins, turned some heads.

Some frontal shots of the back rank.

Below you can see the 50 mm base to change up some of the bowman, and add eyecandy.

Note the skeleton rising up out of the base on the pic below.

So there you have it, the VC Bashin' Wolf Riders.

Next up for the VC orcs, will be a unit of Black Orcs...probably later this spring.

I see GW finally put up some previews of the coming stuff for the new orc and goblin book, and a number of people have jump to it posting about the stuff. I quickly took a look at the stuff. The book cover is attractive, and I generally like fluff, so I'm sure the book will appeal to me, especially since I plan on this being my future army.

I'm not an aracnophobe, more of spider killer, so the giant spider does absolutely nothing for me, I would rather have the wyvern model.

The savages! This is what I wanted to see. I want new pieces for my normal boys and hopefully this will work, and if not, I have new things that I can sculpt more stuff on. I was actually hoping to see that they were even more naked than what they showed, kind of like blood-letters, because it would be a better canvas for those of use who like to convert. I like the giant spear thing, I've been toying with the idea of a 50 mm base with orcs carrying a battering ram for my human bashing boys, this reinforces the coolness of the thought. I will definitely be doing that. The savage shaman I love the looks of as well as the character. And the savage boar riders are awesome looking to me. I do love the new boars, having semi-naked orcs make them even nicer to work with. I can not wait to get my hands on these. Yay! It will be like a kid during Christmas. I'll take them.

The little nasty goblin dudes, look very characterful, I hope that is a sign of this to come for goblins, and hopefully when they do remake the goblins, they are still multi-piece plastics and not like the DAMNED! Night Goblins and Spider Riders. I hate them, a converters nightmare are what those are.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Next project for the Vampire Count Battling Orcs is a unit goblin wolf riders.This is one of the older kits for the Goblins. I still like the goblins but the wolves are a different story.I decided once again to use skeletons and tombstones and such. This one gets a skeleton with a spear sticking him to the ground. The models were going to be armed with every option.

The bow is fine, but the spear needs some help, so the plan will be to fix those spears and make them a bit more goblin like. That will be shown next time.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Whoo!!....Awesome. Very happy for those guys, overcoming all of the injuries.

And... They excercise the Demon that was Bratt Favre. Down with 4, Give me 12. IN TED! WE TRUST.

Ted made the right decision people, that guy to right has huge balls. I'm happy for these guys, glad to see Driver, Woodson, Clifton, and Tauscher get this trophy. May be the last game for Clifton, he's been a warrior for so long. Glad to see Rodgers get this and get rid of the shadow that he's been under, he deserved this, I see also he got the Belt. Jennings, Raji, Mathews, these guys are awesome.

Friday, February 4, 2011

As many of the long time readers of my blog know, I'm a big sports fan, following NASCAR, Wisconsin Badger Football and Hockey, and of course the Green Bay Packers. I had lived in the Green Bay area nearly 20 years and it is Packer Football 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. No the city is not a ghost town during the game, there are other things that go on and not everyone is at the game, but the Packers are a very big part of the area. So....

What better way to show your team love than to make a Packer Space Marine to celebrate.

I must confess I made this a few years ago, but its still one of my favorite Space Marines. No its not the Traitor #4 Bratt Favre, its the legendary #66 Big Bad Ray, one of the Linebacker Monsters.Yes that is a cheese wedge also. I really think people get to touchy about name calling and such, for those that don't know, people in the state of Wisconsin, USA, are called "Cheeseheads". We in Wisconsisn by the way call those in Illinois FIBs, I'll let you figure out the acronym.At the time of making this, I had thought about doing an entire Blood Bowl team like this.

And one of the cool things about Space Marines is that many color schemes actually work on them.

Arms are from Chaos Beastmen. So with this shown and the coming Weekend's big game not to mention the UFC, you probably won't see much new work from this weekend.

About Me

I've been involved in the hobby of war gaming now for approximately 20 years. I was the GW 2008 Chicago GT Best Appearance winner in Fantasy, and have collected a number of Rogue Demon awards over the years at Adepticon from their painting contests. Mike Butcher and I were the winners of 2012 Adepticon WAB Team event. My primary interest lies in the modeling of the miniatures. I love cool looking armies and miniatures and terrain. And I also occassionally throw down the dice.
So if you like conversions and paint like I do, that is what you will get here. From Warhammer Fantasy to 40k to Historicals.